Avant-Garde and Kitsch

In his 1939 essay "Avant-Garde and Kitsch," Clement Greenberg argued that avant-garde Modernism represented the only vital culture of the time, threatened by the rise of "kitsch"—a debased form of culture. Greenberg, a Marxist critic, saw kitsch as prevalent in both capitalist and socialist industrial societies, and he believed art should offer a superior path.1

Greenberg championed a formalist aesthetic, focusing on the intrinsic qualities of art media rather than content. He saw art history progressing towards pure abstraction. His ideas influenced Abstract Expressionism and later movements like Post-Painterly Abstraction.1

The irony of the avant-garde, as noted by critics, is that its radicalism became marketable within capitalism, turning shock into novelty and avant-garde art into a commodity.2